Editing
a book is as time consuming as writing a book. I find it interesting that each
of the people who edit any part of my writing find a different array of
mistakes. Each has a different eye for writing style or story structure. My
wife (and principal collaborator) has a different ear for readability than the
retired teacher in my writing guild.
I
relish every comment and correction. I like it when my pages come back to me
more red than black. I have extracted an entire education from the varied edits
that I receive. Recently, I identified a new editing source that, I’m
embarrassed to say, was right under my nose, my voice.
Two
weeks ago, I was struggling a bit, to read one of my contributions aloud at my
meeting of the Sagebrush
Writer’s Guild. It seemed to be garbled and confused. My wife suggested
that I slow down and read the passage with more ‘deliberation.’ She told me to
listen to one of the other writers when she read her next selection. I did as I
was bid. Laura’s reading was nearly flawless. It read smoothly and ‘flowed.’
After the meeting, I reread my two pages aloud.
It
was the moment of revelation. My pages were difficult to read in a coherent,
smooth voice. I realized that people read aloud differently than they read
silently. The difference highlighted the difficult wording and muffled
structure that made my writing difficult to read.
When
I’m editing text in a normal way, I edit silently. I read phrases and groups of
words. My mind tends to skip over the tiny flaws and focuses on the meaning of
the entire phrase. Speed-readers read in larger groups of words, whole
sentences, or whole pages. Our minds read what we ‘expect’ to read. This is
especially true for me, as a writer, trying to read what I have written. I see
what I expect to see and my mind fills in the gaps and corrects the errors as I
go. However, when I read aloud from a written page, I must read and say every
single word. I can’t skip over the grammar errors. I can’t ignore missed words.
I deny my mind the luxury of making the corrections that provide smooth
understanding.
I
went home that afternoon and read one of Laura’s paragraphs aloud. I remember
that I was facing the centerpiece on our dining room table. The piece ‘flowed.’
It was readable. Then I reread my troublesome paragraph and I stumbled in a couple
of places and fell flat on my face in another. When I took a harder look at the
offending sentences, I found that the sentence structure was twisted. The
emphasis was on the wrong concept. One was even a ‘passive’ structure. I don’t
like the ‘passive’ sentence structure.
I
reworked the pages until I could read them aloud, smoothly. I found them to be
easier to understand. The words seemed to ‘flow’ together. I gave the new pages
to my wife to proofread. I was startled by how few corrections she had marked.
I
have two books in the editing loop and a fourth half-done. I took my galley
copy of my next release, I’m
a Marine, and printed a hard copy. Whenever I had a few free moments, I
took some of the pages, sat on the deck, and read aloud to an empty yard. I
read most of the book with smooth, flowing ease. Nevertheless, there was a
consistency in the type of errors and difficulties that I found.
Reading
aloud is a solitary exercise. That’s why I use the technique. A variation on
the theme would be to have someone else read aloud and for you to listen. Two
problems with the second choice are that it requires two people and the method
just doesn’t seem to me to be as effective. I bring it up because some people
might prefer the two person edit.
I
also have another variation on the theme. I have my word processor read aloud
to me. I didn’t know if my word processor had the ‘text to speech’ capability
or not, so I googled my word processors name and the words ‘text to speech.’ As
I expected, the search found a dozen web pages and two dozen videos (don’t we
love You Tube) with exact details of how to activate the ‘voice to text’
feature. Two drop-down boxes and a configuration selection later and I have a
new icon on my tools bar next to my ‘redo’ button. If I want to hear my text
read aloud in a somewhat artificial voice, I highlight the text and click on
the ‘spoken word’ icon on my tool bar. My thoughts sound markedly different
when read by a computer in a computer-generated voice.
All
three variations on the theme have value and produce different results. Look at
the rise of the audio book. An understanding comes from hearing the spoken word
that is missing from reading the written word. I prefer reading aloud to an
empty back yard. Yes, I read this entry to my empty back yard before I posted
it.
 |
| Jeff Bailey |
Others
books by Justina Chen: North
of Beautiful, Blind
Spot for Boys, and Return
to Me.
Jeff
Bailey’s latest release: The
Defect.
Future
releases by Jeff Bailey include I’m
a Marine, The
Chilcoat Project, and Wine
Country.
